The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

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Henry had arranged with printer Rind to publish a pamphlet of brother Arthur’s
anti-Stamp Act writings along with John Dickinson’s The Farmer’s Letters. Philip
Davidson claimed, “He [R. H. Lee] knew the power of the press, bewailed the
absence of any newspaper whatever in Virginia for some months in 1781, and
throughout the war regretted the failure of the leaders to make use of what facilities
they had for reaching the people.” 107 One researcher has suggested that the Lee
family was the key to bringing a second, competitive printer to Williamsburg to
expand the practice of press freedom. 108 Thomas Ludwell Lee was on the
committee that edited Mason’s Declaration of Rights, and the press clause first
appeared in Lee’s handwriting. One recent book suggests that Lee may have written
the free press provision at Mason’s suggestion. 109 Both Mason and Thomas
Ludwell Lee actively corresponded with Richard Henry Lee, who was serving in the
Continental Congress in New York. Mason respected him as he respected few
others. The day that Mason arrived at the convention, and just as the committee
considered the declaration and the constitution, he wrote to Richard Henry Lee,
pleading for his attendance, “I need not tell you how much you will be wanted here
on this Occasion. I speak with the Sincerity of a Friend, when I assure you that, in
my opinion, your absence can not, must not be dispensed with. We can not do
without you.” 110 This is the same letter in which Mason chastised other committee
members for their lack of usefulness. Richard Henry Lee was meeting in the
Continental Congress and did not return to Virginia, and while no letter is extant, it
is quite possible he wrote to Mason or to his brother Thomas Ludwell with
107 Davidson, Propaganda and the American Revolution, 18-19. See also Berg, Eighteenth-
Century Williamsburg Imprints, entry for 1768 for Dickinson’s letters.
108 Godfrey, “Printers of the Virginia Gazettes,” 247-256 and 385.
109 Broadwater, George Mason: Forgotten Founder, 81-89.
110 Mason to Richard Henry Lee, Williamsburg, May 18, 1776, Rutland, Papers of George
Mason, 1:271-272.